What does “the 99%” and “the 1%” mean? (by Peter Brown)

This is a poetic way of talking about class power and privilege in our country.  If we look at it as just “numbers” or as simply the highest 1% of income, we can miss the point.  

“The 99%” is about the vast majority of us who have almost no security or property (oh, do you actually own your house, or do you share it with some hedge fund?), actually 99.999% of the population.  

We have to work to survive; they call us “the middle class” to keep us from seeing our connection to people just like us who are already dispossessed, but we are the working class because we have to work to survive, regardless of our income.  Highly paid executives are being fired, and often plunging into poverty within a couple of years because their savings are exhausted due to debt, medical crises, etc.

The "1%”, actually the .001%, or 1 of every 100,000 people, speaks about not just the richest, but about those who actually control our economy and government, the billionaire CEOs and Directors and major stockholders of the giant investment banks such as Morgan Stanley, J.P.Morgan Chase, UBS, etc.